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Chief Inspector Gamache returns to Three Pines, where a person universally disliked, C.C. de Poitiers has been murdered in elaborate fashion in front of a crowd watching a curling match.

Unfortunately, the author used a technique i detest, so this will be the final book i read in the series. On at least three occasions we're following along in the mind of a character, but to keep the suspense going leaves out crucial thoughts.

"Her cell phone rang. She hesitated, knowing who it was, and not wanting to leave her last thought."

So, despite getting visibility into the character's thoughts, suddenly she doesn't think of the name of who is calling? Of course not, but the author doesn't want to let us into the scheme just yet. Rather than write from a different point of view or work around this limitation, she just leaves the thought out. And does this multiple times.

Meh.

I found Mastering Genealogical Documentation to be very very frustrating, but ultimately it was very useful. The author says this book is a textbook, whereas Evidence Explained is a reference work. To some degree that's true.

Despite having read Genealogy Standards a few times, I've clearly missed some important points. That's mostly because Genealogy Standards does not include discussion of the standards. I read a lot of technical standards for a living. BCG's Genealogy Standards leave a lot to be desired for explanation.

That's a preface to the first really good point about Mastering Genealogical Documentation: it's an extensive discussion and breakdown of BCG standard 5, which lays out the 5 facets/elements/components of a citation: who, what, where, when, and wherein. What satisfies as good information for each element? Thomas W. Jones answers that. (Evidence Explained really does not.)

The second really good thing about Mastering Genealogical Documentation is that Jones has multiple chapters devoted to the really common situation of having images of another source. He breaks that down into a few situations: published images of published sources, published images of unpublished sources, unpublished images of unpublished sources, and unpublished images of unknown or lost sources. For each of those scenarios, the book lays out 4-5 options for how to construct citations. More importantly, the author explains why he recommend or does not recommend each method. Jones was editor of NGS Quarterly from 2003 to 2018, so he's certainly influential, but I'd prefer he didn't use passive voice as if his views are universal, using passive voice ("this option is not recommended").

The third really good thing about Mastering Genealogical Documentation is that Jones presents an actual process. Chapter 17 presents "Ten steps to cite any source". Boy howdy is that really useful! I do wish he didn't wait until the last chapter because that process would have been useful to work through the exercises in each chapter, particularly the exercises based on "using your own sources, apply this chapter".

Two related parts worth criticism though. One, Jones presents everything through a lens of format rather than function. Capitalize this way, not that way! Use periods here! I think people would learn & understand better with a focus on the what, and then applying that into how to format it into a citation. The second is that Jones focuses on publication of citations (Elizabeth Shown Mills does this as well in Evidence Explained). Jones is both a publication editor, as well as a frequently published writer. But there's a vast swath of "intermediate" genealogists who are trying to build family trees accurately and to high standards rather than publish articles. We don't work primarily with word processing software, and formal citations are a hindrance to smooth work flow. For instance, when I am documenting a source of published images of unpublished records, combining the documentation into one sentence like citation makes it harder for me to pick out each source as I review my notes. When I initially wrote this criticism on social media, one person responded to me with "just do what you want, use the parts you find useful." Which is absolutely true, but not useful. What I am saying is this work is tailored to budding genealogy writers or transitional professionals, not intermediate genealogists who want more solid trees. But it is extremely useful to those of us in that category; we just have to dig out the useful parts.

This book has three parts: the story "The Lucky Strike", an essay by Kim Stanley Robinson expounding on the themes of the story, and an interview of the author by Terry Bisson.

The Lucky Strike imagines that the crew of the Enola Gay are not the ones to fly Little Boy to Japan. Instead, the bombardier on The Lucky Strike is very torn about killing 100,000 people and imagines himself saying no, leaping out of the airplane, and worse. I think we should examine our motivations for bombing Hiroshima, but I don't know enough to have a moral opinion whether it was correct in the time. Nevertheless I'm deeply uncomfortable with the choice we did make. Maybe that's why all the second-guessing bombardier Frank January does in the story doesn't resonate; it repeats things I've thought about myself. I can't say "don't read this" because my inability to connect with this probably says more about me than it does the story.

However, Robinson's essay on historical theories, whether they are good to apply to the Hiroshima bombing, and what to make of the alternate possibilities is also not something I connected with. I'm not interested in theories of history like the "great man" theory.

And lastly, I did find some interesting tidbits in Bisson's interview of Robinson, but most of the questions are pedestrian. In some cases, Robinson turns them into something interesting. In other cases, particularly on his writing methods, not so interesting. (Maybe writers will get something from those? 🤷)